Science news

• Cash questions dominate climate talks

  22-10-2015 23:59 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Negotiators meeting at UN climate talks in Germany say that questions over cash are the biggest barrier to a new global deal.
  
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• 'Black Death' germ has afflicted humankind longer than suspected

  22-10-2015 22:44
  
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The plague germ that caused the "Black Death" in the 14th century and other ferocious pandemics has stalked humankind far longer than previously known.
  
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• Howler monkeys sacrifice sperm for deeper roars

  22-10-2015 22:10
  
  In howler monkeys, expanded vocal tracts make for deeper-voiced males with smaller testes, researchers find.
  
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• Heavy rain in West Texas floats some travel trailers away

  22-10-2015 21:44
  
  DALLAS (AP) — Storms that dumped more than 3 inches of rain in West Texas led to flooding that floated several travel trailers and a double-wide mobile home away from an RV park.
  
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• Wasp that kills stink bugs found; could help fruit orchards

  22-10-2015 21:19
  
  SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Scientists from Washington State University have discovered a parasitic wasp in the state that kills its host like a scene from the movie "Alien." But the discovery is good news because the wasp kills a type of stink bug that harms fruit orchards.
  
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• Visit seals deal on 'China Eden'

  22-10-2015 20:30 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Sir Tim Smit signs a contract to build an Eden project on the east coast of China.
  
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• A Strong Work Ethic Brings Sick Doctors to Work

  22-10-2015 20:30 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Two new studies pinpoint why doctors come to work sick and offer solutions for hospitals to implement
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Scientists 'cautiously optimistic' about new government

  22-10-2015 20:18 via cbc.ca
  
  The newly-elected Liberal government has promised a different approach to dealing with scientists, who many critics said were muzzled under the Conservative government.
  
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• Deep-voiced monkeys may be 'all talk,' study finds

  22-10-2015 20:06
  
  The next time you hear a howler monkey making a loud, deep-throated call in the jungle, you might be right to wonder, "Is he compensating for something?"
  
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• Signs of Alzheimer’s seen in young brain’s GPS cells

  22-10-2015 20:00
  
  Signs of Alzheimer’s can show up in the brain’s compass decades before symptoms strike.
  
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• Heavy fighting breaks out in Yemen's Taiz city, ICRC says situation 'dire'

  22-10-2015 19:31
  
  At least 20 Houthi militia fighters were killed in heavy clashes in Yemen's third-largest city Taiz on Thursday, a day after they pounded it with rockets, forces loyal to the government said. Taiz, considered Yemen's cultural capital, has suffered huge destruction since becoming a main battleground in a war between government supporters and the Iran-allied Houthis, who are backed by forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. A Saudi-led coalition trying to restore the government of Yem
  
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• Expedition seeks Atlantis microbes

  22-10-2015 19:31 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Monday will see an international team of scientists set sail for the mid-Atlantic on a quest to sample microorganisms living deep in the ocean floor.
  
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• Boko Haram militants kill eight villagers in Cameroon - government

  22-10-2015 19:05
  
  Eight villagers in Cameroon's Far North region were killed in a raid by Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram that was followed by a gunbattle between militants and security forces, a government official said on Thursday. Boko Haram wants to create a caliphate under a strict version of Islamic law in adjacent northeastern Nigeria and has carried out raids into neighbouring countries. "For security forces and Boko Haram militants, we do not yet have a death toll." Boko Haram used Cameroon's north to
  
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• VW says second type of engine not fitted with cheating device

  22-10-2015 18:59
  
  German auto giant Volkswagen has reportedly steered clear of a fresh blow in its emissions-rigging scandal after tests found that another type of diesel engine was not fitted with software designed to dupe testers.
  
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• EU 'ineffective' on illegal logging

  22-10-2015 18:46 via bbc.co.uk
  
  EU aid aimed at curbing the illegal timber trade was poorly managed, say auditors, who are urging better targeting and monitoring.
  
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• UK animal experiment count 'falls'

  22-10-2015 18:31 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Home Office's annual statistics show a 6% drop in animal experiments in the UK - but the office has changed the way it collects these figures.
  
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• BlackBerry PRIV Android phone could be company's last, says analyst

  22-10-2015 18:22 via cbc.ca
  
  For the first time ever BlackBerry has produced a smartphone that runs on a 3rd-party operating system. The company's new PRIV smartphone runs Android instead of BlackBerry's own operating system.
  
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• Bronze Age plague wasn't spread by fleas

  22-10-2015 18:15
  Ancient DNA pushes back genesis of plague by more than 3000 years
  
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• NASA Asteroid-Sampling Probe Fully Built, Enters Test Phase

  22-10-2015 18:09
  
  NASA's first asteroid-sampling spacecraft is now fully assembled. "This is an exciting time for the program, as we now have a completed spacecraft and the team gets to test drive it, in a sense, before we actually fly it to Bennu," said Rich Kuhns, the OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, which will also provide flight operations for the mission. "The environmental test phase is an important time in the mission, as it will reveal any issues with the spacecraft and instrum
  
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• Rosetta Team Names Comet Features for Lost Colleagues

  22-10-2015 18:06
  
  Two prominent features on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko were selected by the European Space Agency's Rosetta team to be dedicated to two mission colleagues, respectively, who recently passed away. "These two features were chosen for their prominence on Comet 67P/C-G, and for their very distinctive and striking gatelike appearances, considered to be highly appropriate monuments for our absent colleagues," Taylor wrote. The C. Alexander Gate, located on the smaller lobe of Comet 67P/C-G, has bee
  
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• Plagues plagued the Bronze Age

  22-10-2015 18:00
  
  Ancient bacterial DNA provides first clues to Bronze Age plagues in Europe and Asia.
  
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• Big testicles mean a softer voice, at least in howler monkeys

  22-10-2015 18:00
  Testes size is inversely correlated with animals’ ability to roar
  
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• Hooded warbler mistakes Calgary for Cancun, thrilling birdwatchers

  22-10-2015 17:49 via cbc.ca
  
  The hooded warbler, which hails form the east coast and usually migrates to Mexico this time of year, has been spotted in Fish Creek Park.
  
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• Hooded warbler mistakes Calgary for Cancun

  22-10-2015 17:49 via cbc.ca
  
  The hooded warbler, which hails form the East Xoast and usually migrates to Mexico this time of year, has been spotted in Fish Creek Park.
  
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• NASA's New Horizons on new post-Pluto mission

  22-10-2015 17:40
  
  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The spacecraft that gave us the first close-up views of Pluto now has a much smaller object in its sights.
  
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• YouTube to launch $10-a-month ad-free video, music plan called Red

  22-10-2015 17:30 via cbc.ca
  
  YouTube on Wednesday unveiled a new $10-a-month subscription plan in the U.S. called Red that combines ad-free videos, new original series and movies from top YouTubers, and on-demand unlimited streaming music.
  
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• VW says tests find second type of diesel engine not affected: news agency

  22-10-2015 17:16
  
  Germany's scandal-hit auto giant Volkswagen said Thursday that tests have found that another type of diesel engine was not fitted with software designed to cheat pollution tests.
  
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• 'Genuine fall' in number of experiments performed on animals

  22-10-2015 17:07
  
  A 6% fall in the number of experiments performed on animals has been hailed as a significant step forward in attempts to reduce suffering for the sake of science.
  
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• Flu shot's 'crystal ball' science is still our best bet against influenza, experts say

  22-10-2015 17:00 via cbc.ca
  
  The seasonal flu shot is designed by the world's top scientists who have access to a global network of data — but at the end of the day, it's just guesswork. Still, it remains our best chance at fighting influenza.
  
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• Climate change doubter loses Australian funding

  22-10-2015 17:00
  
  New government cancels support for think tank led by Bjørn Lomborg
  
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• Eating a Healthy Diet May Reduce Brain Shrinkage

  22-10-2015 16:47
  
  People who eat a diet rich in fish, fruits and vegetables but low in meat may lose fewer brain cells as they age, according to a new study. The researchers scanned the participants' brains, and found that those whose diets included at least five of these nine components had brain volumes that measured 13.11 millimeters larger on the scans, on average, compared with the brain volumes of the people whose diets included fewer than five components. This difference in brain volume between the two gro
  
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• Poop Goes Mainstream: Fecal Transplants Get Past the 'Ick'

  22-10-2015 16:44
  
  Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), as it is properly called — and there's no sugarcoating the description here — is the process of placing the feces of a healthy person into the gut of a patient with an intestinal problem, such as chronic diarrhea or irritable bowel syndrome. More than 4,000 gut specialists have gathered at the 80th annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in Honolulu, Hawaii, and one item on their agenda is discussing the merits of FMT. Severa
  
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• US Marijuana Use Has More Than Doubled in a Decade

  22-10-2015 16:43
  
  Marijuana use in the United States more than doubled from 2001 to 2013, according to new research. Moreover, as more people began using marijuana, the number of people with the mental health condition that researchers call "marijuana use disorder" also increased, to about 3 percent of U.S. adults, the researchers found. The uptick in marijuana use coincides with a profusion of increasingly permissive marijuana laws.
  
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• What is climate change?

  22-10-2015 16:38 via bbc.co.uk
  
  What do we - and don't we - know?
  
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• Lunar Pit Stop? Mars-Bound Astronauts May Refuel Near Moon

  22-10-2015 16:25
  
  Such a strategy would reduce the mass of a Mars mission by up to 68 percent at launch, resulting in significant cost savings, researchers said. "This is completely against the established common wisdom of how to go to Mars, which is a straight shot to Mars, carry everything with you," study co-author Olivier de Weck, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and of engineering systems at the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), said in a statement. Exploiting lunar resources in this wa
  
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• Moon's Shattered Crust Could Shed Light on Earth Life's Origins

  22-10-2015 16:22
  
  The moon's battered surface could help scientists understand how life first took root on Earth. Some parts of the moon were so heavily bombarded with small asteroids billions of years ago that the impacts completely shattered the upper crust there, a new study reports. "The whole process of generating pore space within planetary crusts is critically important in understanding how water gets into the subsurface," study lead author Jason Soderblom, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Instit
  
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• Star-Crossed Lovers? Two Suns Caught Smooching

  22-10-2015 16:12
  
  Catching two stars in this phase of life is "extremely rare," the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said in a statement, because the stars don't remain in this state for long. Known collectively as VFTS 352, the enormous stars provide a rare look at the mixing of material from two different stellar sources, said Leonardo Almeida, at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and lead author of a study that identified the unusual pair. When two double stars orbit one another close enough that
  
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• Milky Way Glitters in Most Enormous Image of Our Galaxy

  22-10-2015 16:00
  
  A new, insanely massive picture of the Milky Way — 46 billion pixels across — marks the largest astronomical image of all time, researchers say. The amazing view of the Milky Way was built out of 268 individual views of the galaxy that includes the sun and the Earth, captured night after night over the course of five years with telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert. The researchers made the zoom-able, searchable image available their website, so galactic explorers can scroll acro
  
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• Milky Way Glitters in Most Enormous Image Ever

  22-10-2015 16:00
  
  A new, insanely massive picture of the Milky Way — 46 billion pixels across — marks the largest astronomical image of all time, researchers say. The amazing view of the Milky Way was built out of 268 individual views of the galaxy that includes the sun and the Earth, captured night after night over the course of five years with telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert. The researchers made the zoom-able, searchable image available their website, so galactic explorers can scroll acro
  
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• Milky Way Glitters in Most Enormous Astronomical Image Ever

  22-10-2015 16:00
  
  A new, insanely massive picture of the Milky Way — 46 billion pixels across — marks the largest astronomical image of all time, researchers say. The amazing view of the Milky Way was built out of 268 individual views of the galaxy that includes the sun and the Earth, captured night after night over the course of five years with telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert. The researchers made the zoom-able, searchable image available their website, so galactic explorers can scroll acro
  
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• Astronaut Hall of Fame Closing to Become Part of High-Tech Space Attraction

  22-10-2015 16:00
  
  Twenty-five years after its doors first opened to the public, the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame is closing in preparation for its re-launch as part of a new interactive attraction late next year. Located in Titusville, Florida, just south of the launch pads where its honorees departed for space, the Astronaut Hall of Fame is set to move up the road to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, which has managed the hall as an off-site facility since 2002. "Bringing the U.S. Astronaut Hall
  
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• New Galapagos giant tortoise species identified

  22-10-2015 15:32 via cbc.ca
  
  Scientists have identified a new species of giant tortoise on the Galapagos Islands, using genetic data to determine that a group of 250 of the slow-moving grazing reptiles was distinct from other tortoise species residing in the Pacific archipelago.
  
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• Un-intelligent Design: No Purpose for Vestigial Ear-Wiggling Reflex

  22-10-2015 15:20
  
  Today, the muscles aren't capable of moving much — but their reflex action still exists. And then there are the educational implications: This muscle reflex is new evidence against the notion of creationism or intelligent design, Hackley said. "According to intelligent design and creationism, our body was designed by a being with perfect intelligence," he said.
  
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• VW examining if another engine has pollution cheating device

  22-10-2015 15:13
  
  Germany's scandal-hit auto giant Volkswagen said Thursday it was examining if another type of diesel engine had been fitted with software designed to cheat official pollution tests.
  
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• This September was the hottest ever - breaking 7th monthly record of 2015

  22-10-2015 14:47 via cbc.ca
  
  This past September was the hottest ever worldwide — the seventh monthly record set this year.
  
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• Heavy fighting breaks out in Yemen's Taiz city

  22-10-2015 14:36
  
  At least 20 Houthi militia fighters were killed in heavy clashes in Yemen's third-largest city Taiz on Thursday, a day after they pounded it with rockets, forces loyal to the government said. Taiz, considered Yemen's cultural capital, has suffered huge destruction since becoming a main battleground in the conflict between government supporters and the Iran-allied Houthis, who are backed by forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Houthis and Saleh's forces are battling a Saudi-le
  
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• Dead arms test role of clenched fist

  22-10-2015 14:26 via bbc.co.uk
  
  US scientists perform a macabre set of experiments to bolster their controversial argument that fist fights shaped the human hand.
  
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• Jazz-Playing Robots Will Explore Human-Computer Relations

  22-10-2015 14:23
  
  The new project, called MUSICA (short for Musical Improvising Collaborative Agent), aims to develop a musical device that can improvise a jazz solo in response to human partners, just as real jazz musicians improvise alongside one another. MUSICA is part of a new program from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S. military responsible for developing new technologies. "There is definitely a desire for more natural kinds of communications with computational s
  
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• Psy In Feud With Artists Over Seoul Building

  22-10-2015 13:42
  
  South Korean singer Psy is fighting a legal battle with a group of artists who are renting space in a building he owns in Seoul. Choi Jee Ahn of Takeout Drawing said around 10 lawsuits have been exchanged between a gallery the artists belong to and their YouTube star landlord. The company didn't go through with the plans before selling the property to Psy for about £4.4m.
  
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• Rich nations stalling on climate finance: developing bloc

  22-10-2015 13:04
  
  Developing nations accused rich ones Thursday of stonewalling on finance in negotiations for a universal climate rescue pact -- an issue they said would make or break the entire effort.
  
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